Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Microsoft has already unveiled its consumer health portal–HealthVault–and continues to plow ahead with its mission to “improve health through software technology,” most recently via the acquisition of a “state-of-the-art-health information system” from Global Care Solutions (GCS), a Bangkok-based company that develops enterprise-class health systems.

The Microsoft goal with the deal is to “power developing and emerging hospital systems around the globe” by improving workflow and patient safety, according to Peter neupert, VP, Health Solutions Group. GCS has implemented an end-to-end system at Bumrungrad International hospital:

An internationally accredited facility based in Bangkok, the hospital treats more than 1.2 million patients from 190 countries each year. The GCS solution efficiently manages clinical workflow, billing, regulatory compliance and medical records. Microsoft will continue to work closely with Bumrungrad to further build out the functionality and features of the GCS technology.

Where does Google stand on empowering consumers and/or supporting institutions in the delivery of health care? We won’t know precisely before next year, but the public pronouncements of the temporary Google Health Archtitect–Marissa Mayer–reveal a possible kindler, gentler Google Health is in the works than what her predecessor Adam Bosworth had in store for Google’s medical plans.

Google wants to improve life for physicians, Mayer has advised:

The goal for a lot of dcotors is how many patients they can see in a day. That means their minutes per patient has got to go down, and the less time they have to spend finding and going over patient records the better. Ultimately we will design a product that’s useful for users, and also helps doctors to do their job more quickly and efficiently.

Mayer’s empathetic reachout to MDs contrasts with the more menacing outlook presented by Bosworth, as I analyze in Google Health: Lambast Doctors, Sell Medical Ads.

Bosworth on how the American public is at big medical risk, in drastic need of Google intervention: “There are roughly 5000 preventable medical errors a day taking place at doctor’s offices.”

While Googler Mayer may have a much more Googley sounding public stance than Bosworth did, Microsoft continues, nevertheless, to take the medical lead in the Redmond vs. Mountain View medical battle.

MORE: Google vs. Wal-Mart in Electronic Health Record Battle for Consumers and HealthVault: Microsoft to Beat Google Medical Search Thanks to MOM!

ALSO: Google AdSense: Dawn of the Web’s Bloopers and Business Plans Help the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid Go Down

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

NBC is on an online roll today. Not only is the broadcast network unveiling its Hulu.com premium Web video offering, NBC Sports is gearing up for its own debut on Saturday: First ever, live streaming coverage of a U.S. Olympics Trials, in partnership with online sports broadcaster MediaZone.

As MediaZone entered its final preparation zone for its online Olympic debut, I spoke with Chris Ott, Sports Director, about MediaZone’s work with the Olympics and New York City’s marathon:

Last year’s first-ever live Internet broadcast of the ING New York City Marathon was a groundbreaking event, and this year’s Marathon weekend coverage should build on this success, offering expanded coverage and features that can’t be found anywhere else.

At a cost of $4.99, MediaZone subscribers are entitled to watch the marathon live online and relive the experience on-demand for 90 days.

MediaZone garnered 8000 paying subscribers for last year’s marathon, Ott told me. Marathon buffs and friends and family of participants are fans of MediaZone’s unique interactive features, Ott indicated:

Multiple camera views for the most comprehensive coverage,
Live chat with other users for real-time interaction as the race onfolds,
Video comments option during on-demand viewing,
Hot-off-the-press race news via RSS feed.

On the eve of Sunday’s New York City marathon, the 2008 Olympic Team Trials for the Men’s Marathon will be held in NYC as well, on Saturday; MediaZone will also have it, online and free:

Watch free live streaming coverage and stay in step with these elite athletes as they make their way from Rockefeller Plaza to Tavern on the Green.

Just as the runners hope to best their previous records, Ott and his team also aim to build off MediaZone’s 2006 inaugural marathon coverage, setting up for an online performance of “olympic” proportions!

ALSO: Hulu.com Debuts: Worth the Wait

PLUS: Business Plans Help the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid Go Down and paidContent Disrupts Business Media, Today in Silicon Alley!

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

The knives are out for Hulu.com, the NBC Universal-News Corp. anti-YouTube intitiative?

“I think there’s a snarky desire to say this is big dumb media and this is a big dumb joint venture,” said Peter Chernin, president of the News Corporation.

Not here at Insider Chatter! Since June, I have chronicled and anlayzed the impending debut of Hulu.com (NewCo) following first-hand presentations and Q & A with top NBC Universal execs at diverse media and tech conferences in Manhattan. ( NBC: Millions in Upfront Video Ad Sales and Who Needs YouTube: Good NBC, ABC Stuff Free AND Legal! )

In NBC on Why Hulu.com IS a YouTube Killer: OMMA Report last month I cited a confident George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal’s Chief Digitlal Officer, in laying out an intelligent Hulu.com business model strategy based on the premise that “quality” always wins out.

Hulu.com unveils its private beta today and its quality wins vision is out of the online video gate:

Hulu’s ambitious and never-ending mission is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premium content when, where and how you want it. We hope to provide you with the web’s most comprehensive selection of premium programming across all genres and formats – television shows, feature films, clips, and more. Additionally, we want to give you more choices of when and where you can enjoy your favorite programming, while creating innovative experiences that let you watch and participate in online video in new and exciting ways.

Hulu.com aims to ofer its premium content via a premium viewing experience:

Hulu is designed with a singular focus on providing an exceptional, online video viewing experience. You can customize the experience to fit your viewing preferences - watch videos in full screen, or pop out the video player and place it anywhere on your computer screen and re-size it if you’re multi-tasking. You can even dim the lights and mute the rest of the browser window so nothing distracts you from the video you’re watching.

Hulu.com “gets” Web 2.0, “sharing is caring”:

Hulu lets you easily share your favorite videos via email or embed them on your own website. You can even choose to share the entire video or just one scene. By selecting the share or embed feature, you have the option of selecting your own start and stop point in a video to create your own fun video clips.

Hulu lets you enjoy your favorite videos at websites where you are already spending your time online. Visit our partner sites: AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo, to view the same selection of premium programming available at Hulu.com. Each partner features content in its own customized video player to provide a seamless viewing experience on their sites.

While Hulu.com is still in private beta, a sneak preview of the “fun” video time in store is offered by Jason Kilar, CEO, Hulu:

I’m embedding a full episode of The Office (it gets my vote for funniest show on television). In addition to watching it from this page, you can easily grab and embed the full episode - or a clip that you determine - at your own blog or on other web pages that you manage. Just mouse over the below screen, go to the menu, and click on embed. We hope you enjoy this and other functionality that we’re offering to make it easy to share your favorites from Hulu with others.

While Hulu.com will soon be off to the races, NBC Universal itself still has YouTube to contend with, YouTube’s copyright infringement that is. SEE:  Google To World: Give YouTube Your Videos, NOW! and NBC’s Defense Against YouTube IP Abuse? Carrot, NOT Stick: OMMA Report  and NBC Still Booming on YouTube: Google Lawsuit Next?

PLUS: NBC, MediaZone Olympic Marathon First: Free, Live Streaming of Trials

ALSO: Business Plans Help the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid Go Down

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

When I chatted with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman last month about how the professional network he built trumps the social network he invested in, Facebook, in the business arena, he told me one of the core reasons why LinkedIn is the online destination of choice for choice professionals is discretion, that old-school, but good school, executive virtue:

While Facebook is used by bloggers to push out their own media to as wide a circle as possible, ”most professionals don’t want an open door policy,” Hoffman told me. The 3,414 CEOs that use Linkedin every day, notably!

In Web-based social networking, six figure Fortune 500 execs seek the discretion and confidentiality that LinkedIn uniquely offers, Hoffman told me. While bloggers may extol the virtual sociability of an anything and everything goes open blogosphere atmosphere, a professionally run, online “gated referral network” is invaluable in the real world of high-stakes business, Hoffman indicated.

Hoffman will undoubedtly not be surprised, than, that a blogger/entrepreneur has taken to the shed all, share all, blogosphere with an open call for linking in with LinkedIn! Will the tell all blogger, Charlie O’Donnell, be surprised by the reaction, or not, of Linkedin to his direct, unabashed public plea for money for his startup, among other things? Probably not, a goal of the self-proclaimed “uber-stealth” is to “disclose just about everything it can” on the life of its startup, come what may.

O’Donnell says “we have a lot of ideas about how we would see working with LinkedIn that we’d like to share,” and takes to his blog to disclose them to the world.

Is Path 101 exhibiting entrepreneurial chutzpah, or novice naivete? The brash public cry of an in-the-works venture to a well established company for help AND money, in any event, had better be good, damn good, for the sake of the venture’s credibility.

Path 101’s problem 101: O’Donnell writes “here are the top 10 ways that we see working with LinkedIn,” but enumerates a mere seven! (Typo, or not, NOT off to a good start)

Path 101’s MAIN LinkedIn problem, though, is its utterly transparent pleas for help from Hoffman and company to help buid a business, Path 101’s business. Path 101 is hoping to piggyback off LinkedIn’s years-long successful efforts in building out its thriving and growing business. Oh, and we could use your money, too Reid, O’Donnell adds.

O’Donnell strives to make a case for how a LinkedIn-Path 101 linking-in would be a win-win, because both sites would “share” complementary resources and a “Facebook is (only) great for friends” philosophy. Despite Path 101’s “confidence” in its unproven ideas and its projected ability to “hedge” migration to Facebook, its open airing of its open needs offers much in the way of bravado, but little in terms of what it actually brings to the table, LinkedIn’s table, TODAY!

Path 101 on its “status,” as of October 11: “NO assets, NO revenues, a two day old empty checking account…and now, back to actually building this service.”

EXACTLY. Path 101’s “How we would like to work with LinkedIn” sharing is caring post reads more like LinkedIn, how can you help Path 101 realize its very young, and not fully articulated, vision. When a startup is still but a handful of people and a dream, the people must sell themselves (in a good way) to prospective partners, investors, employees….and make a very strong case.

The as yet to be built Path 101 has made a case for why it needs veteran LinkedIn, but does not appear to be in a strong “always be closing” position regarding LinkedIn’s need of O’Donnell and (small) company.

Moreover, O’Donnell’s advice for LinkedIn to build a wizard to “get the whole family involved…whether or not your mom is the CFO of a Fortune 500 company,” is not in sync with LinkedIn’s distinctive, core value proposition.

Kay Luo, LinkedIn’s communications chief: “To be a useful professional network, you have to have the people above you on the network.”

In other words, openness may be a good thing in a “friends and family” blogosphere, but the high-end LinkedIn “gated referral network” is getting the job done professionally, for professionals.

MORE: Reid Hoffman On How LinkedIn Beats Facebook for Business, INTERVIEW

PLUS: Salesconx Will Monetize Your Rolodex: LinkedIn Beware? INTERVIEW and CED Tech 2007: 30 Cool Startups, But NO Facebook Apps

AND: Judy’s Book: What’s On Sale? WE ARE! Ten Reasons Why and Business Plans Help the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid Go Down

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

News Corp.’s “New York Post” is “reporting” the Microsoft 1.6% Facebook equity stake is throwing off some love for News Corp.’s MySpace, $65 billion worth.   

Poor Microsoft, nevertheless? Despite delivering $4.3 billion in net income by selling up a real world Microsoft software storm last quarter, ardent Microsoft detractors continue to plea the consumers are hostage to Microsoft case, even though steadfast Google supporters insist Googley barabarians are at the Microsoft (Bill!) Gates!

How “evil” is Microsoft deemed to be now? “Castrating” is the latest lob against Vista price points.

Will Microsoft ever neutralize the loyal “borg” dissing legions? CEO Steve Ballmer has $240 million riding on Mark Zuckerberg’s creation to instill some cross-over tech love. Hey, Zuckerberg is revered as the new millenium’s Bill Gates, a nicer (sandal-sporting) one!

On the other side of the golden Facebook coin though, the vaunted social graph may be getting more than it bargained (strong-armed) for in Microsoft’s hundreds of millions.

After all, who knows? Microsoft may end up making Facebook UNCOOL, rather than the other way around!

READ MORE: Microsoft Vista: Are 88 million Computers Really Doomed? and Facebook: Microsoft’s Ballmer Gets $240 million Boobie Prize?

PLUS: Facebook, the Web’s State Fair vs. LinkedIn, the Chamber of Commerce and Facebook STILL a Danger to Children: Zuckerberg, Attorney General Cuomo in PR Push

ALSO: NBC, MediaZone Olympic Marathon First: Free, Live Streaming of Trials

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

The disconnect between tech blogosphere negative Microsoft hype and positive Microsoft reality continues to astound. Yesterday, Microsoft reported 27% revenue growth, fastest first quarter since 1999.

Also yesterday, I analyzed and reported on the actual losing state of Google Apps affairs: “Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office KIller.

A Wall Street Journal Blogger, on the other hand, waved that “Google is forcing Microsoft to cut its prices,” after jumping on unsubstantiated, self-serving Google CEO conjecture that because the Googley cloud must be free, prices in the real—Microsoft—software market are tumbling.

Other bloggers then piled on the WSJ’s Ben Worthen’s initial unverified pile-on of Google’s self-motivated Microsoft is an Office loser thanks to Google Apps conjecture with posts reiterating Worthen’s hailing of the Google speak declaration without any apparent first-hand reporting, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the real-world difficult time Google Apps is actually having in attempting to compete against Microsoft Office: Henry Blodget, Silicon Alley Insider, for example, with an unsupported headline “Google is Now Hurting Microsoft’s Core Business.”

I underscored, however, that in the Microsoft vs. Google war, the key question is NOT “Is Google causing Microsoft to drop its prices,”. The fundamental market issue is: WHY DOSEN’T GOOGLE APPS HAVE ANY PRICING POWER ITSELF!

In Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer I present detailed, first-hand reports and analysis and make a solid case for why Google is and will contnue to be 99% AdWords pure. Microsoft’s Q1 earnings report support my contention that no one is “killing” Microsoft Office.

Redmond’s blowout quarter also begs the question: Is the blogosphere out of real-world touch vs a vs Vista?

Typical Vista gloom and doom blogger headlines: “No one is lining up for Windows Vista in San Francisco,” “The top five things about Windows Vista that still suck,” “Is Windows XP too good for Microsoft’s own good?”

Nevertheless, Microsoft has sold 88 million Vista units, besting XP’s initial run rate almost two-fold: Vista-installed PCs aimed at consumers and small businesses, along with packaged retail copies of Vista, comprise the bulk of the number reported.

If Vista were truly the nightmare it is made out to be in the blogosphere, wouldn’t there be a massive consumer Microsoft revolt?

MORE:  IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat and Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway 

PLUS: Google NOT Hot For SILICON ALLEY Technology! and Will Facebook Make Microsoft COOL?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN